


The Adventure Of The Berwickshire Terrier (1901)

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary 221B [198]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Edwardian, Destiel - Freeform, Dogs, F/M, Johnlock - Freeform, Kilts, M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, OC Infidelity, Panties, Scotland, Trains, Traumatized Sam, Untold Cases of Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 19:47:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11743920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: Having recovered from seeing (rather too much of) his big brother some months before, Samuel Watson asks for Sherlock's help on a second case, where the lawyer has to defend a man accused of killing his wife. The great detective assists – sort of.





	The Adventure Of The Berwickshire Terrier (1901)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MelodyofWings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelodyofWings/gifts).



> Mentioned elsewhere as 'the death of Mrs. Stewart of Lauder'.

It was October, some five months after my brother Sammy had called on Sherlock's talents in the Farridge blackmail case, and five months after his unannounced visit to Baker Street had resulted in his setting a world record for the sprint back to the nearby tube station! The moose could, I knew, sulk for an impressively long time – he still had not truly forgiven me for The Frog Thing when we were both children - but as events transpired, he now needed our (Sherlock's) help in a rather unusual murder that had taken place in the border county of Berwickshire, in which he had been appointed to represent the accused man.

I am probably being biased, with my dear mother hailing from Berwickshire's neighbour Roxburghshire, but I often felt that the Victorian _hoi polloi_ who travelled to and from the Highlands every year were missing a lot of far more accessible and equally beautiful (plus slightly less freezing!) countryside. We had, of course, not long returned from Dumfries-shire and our Gretna Green 'blessing' at the western end of the Scottish March, and now we were headed to the eastern Borders.

Berwickshire is, of course, the county most famous for the fact that some time after it had been created out of lands seized from the Kingdom of Northumbria, the latter's successor state of England took back the port for which it had been named, leaving Berwickshire without a Berwick. For most people the county was probably just an inconveniently-sited obstacle to delay them getting to the Highlands, but there was a lot more to the county than just the North British Railway's main line along its almost deserted coastline, and this case took us to a quiet little place in the west of the county, the town of Lauder.

It is curious that I wrote up this story (although not for publication) in 1901, and am now adding it to this final “Elementary” some three decades later. In those far-off days, railways seemed to have become a permanent part of the landscape, and the opening of a new line to where this case took place, some months before these events took place, had been widely celebrated. Yet even before it was built, there had been voices saying that a road would have been a better option, and the subsequent and terrible Great War most definitely showed the advantages of motorized transport. In 1932 the railway to Lauder was closed to passenger traffic, people much preferring to use the 'bus as it did not necessitate any changes and ran right into the town centre. Goods traffic is still carried, but I am sure that once the roads improve and lorries become larger, that too will end, and the railway will be but a memory. It is sad, but I suppose that that is what they call 'progress'.

I mention the railway because it was instrumental in this case, its train taking its nickname from the local breed of dog in the title. Although nominally a private line, it had been worked from the start by the North British Railway, whose metals it connected with at Fountainhall Junction on the Waverley (Carlisle to Edinburgh) line of that Company. That Company had been far from pleased with what it had found in its first few weeks of operations, and had demanded that several improvements be made, else it might pull out. Amongst those was better lighting for the approach to the terminus which, like far too many stations, had been built some little way short of the town that it purported to serve. In what had turned out to be an unfortunate choice of phrasing, a railway official had quipped to a local journalist that potential passengers might find all manner of strange things along that very dark road.

Two weeks after he had said that, Mr. James Stewart of Lauder did find a strange thing along that very dark road. To wit, his wife's dead body.

+~+~+

We had taken the overnight sleeper to Edinburgh and Sammy had met us on the station platform, shaking his head at the very obvious fact that neither of us had gotten much sleep. Well, obvious in my case; clearly the North British Railway's guardian angel had been watching over them, and they had had the foresight or luck to have provided not only coffee but also bacon in their saloon, so _someone_ was as fresh as the morning dew. Life was unfair like that.

I may have exaggerated my limp just a bit, to annoy my little brother, and let out the occasional uncalled for (if manly) expression of pain. In all Sammy did not have a good morning, as we called briefly in on his dear wife Jessica before setting off to the scene of the crime, and she made him turn bright red by asking loudly if we were going to start 'doing it' in her living-room'. Which may have explained why, before we had reached Waverley Station again, Sammy told us that he had booked us into a local hotel for our stay 'because he had so little room'. 

“And no ear-muffs!” some sadistic and inventive blue-eyed person muttered far too loudly. I had not known that my little brother could turn that shade of red!

Our journey took us twenty-five miles south back towards England as far as Fountainhall Junction, where we changed to a somewhat questionable branch-line train that managed to hold together long enough to traverse the ten miles to Lauder. The countryside was very empty I thought, and I remember wondering if the branch would, as its planners had hoped, be pushed on to connect with the railway system again further south.

“So why do they suspect the husband?” I asked, as we walked out of the station. It was as I said some little distance from the town, but the body had been found along this road and Sherlock had wished to see the exact place.

“He was one of the two men who found her”, Sammy said. “And he is the sole beneficiary of a substantial and quite recently purchased life-insurance policy for which the company, understandably, is disinclined to pay out on whilst the potential recipient stands accused of murder.”

We quitted the station and headed up a frankly unwelcoming lane to what must have served as a 'main road' in these parts. There was a gateway to some large private property a little way down on the left, a single cottage slightly closer on the right, and a large castle overlooking a town which had to be the best part of a mile away. Railway stations even then were often poorly sited, since the companies saw no reason to build an expensive extra mile or two when people could walk.

“Where did Mr. and Mrs. Stewart live, exactly?” Sherlock asked. 

“That is one of the strange parts of the case”, Sammy said. “She chanced to meet an acquaintance of hers, a Mrs. Fields, at the junction, but when they reached here, she declined to share that lady's carriage into town. She _claimed_ that she needed some fresh air. The night was pleasant enough; a light mist but no rain, and Mrs. Fields lived on the south-east side of the town whilst Mrs. Stuart lived some way further out to the south-west. But she would have saved herself three-quarters of that walk at least.”

Sherlock smiled knowingly. I was silently pleased to see that that annoyed my little brother as much as it so frequently annoyed me.

“Where did Mrs. Stuart go for the day?” Sherlock asked.

“Edinburgh. A day out shopping, she told her friend.”

“What items were found in her possession at the time of death?”

“Apart from her handbag, which contained nothing of import, she had her shopping items purchased in Edinburgh”, Sammy said. “The only thing I found odd about that was that she bought some dog biscuits.”

“Does she not have a dog?” I asked.

“Mr. Stewart owns Hotspur, a Berwickshire Terrier”, my brother said. “I did ask him if the dog was a fussy eater or something but, after looking at me rather strangely, he said that no, the animal will eat just about anything. I wondered; why buy dog biscuits and carry them all the way from Edinburgh – including on that long walk – when there must surely be somewhere in the town that sells them? Or it is but ten miles to the town of Galashiels; that was where Mrs. Fields had been. They must have been a heavy item for a lady to have to carry all that way. Here, this was where they found the body.”

We were still some little distance from the cottage, and a handily-placed tree leant across the road and blocked our view of it at this point. The road did have some lamp-post bases, but the lamps themselves had not been fitted as of yet. The perfect place to commit a crime, I thought.

“Do you still have the items that the deceased lady was carrying?” Sherlock asked after a brief examination of the area.

“They are being held at Lauder police station, until the case is resolved”, Sammy said, seemingly nonplussed at my friend's interest in the dead lady's shopping purchases. 

“And you said that Mr. Stewart is currently being held in Edinburgh?” Sherlock asked.

“Yes.”

“Have you a key to his house?”

“I have.”

“Then let us go there.”

+~+~+

“Bide-A-Wee Cottage” (look, I was _allowed_ an eye-roll at that!) stood slightly apart from the south-western edge of the town, with only one other cottage just beyond it.

“That last one is Mr. Gardiner's house”, Sammy said. “Mr. Stuart is a small man, and was nervous about going out in the dark, even if it was to search for his wife who was not yet back. Mr. Gardiner, who is younger and much more muscular, accompanied him to the local police station, and they arranged a search party whilst the two set out for the station. They were together when they found Mrs. Stewart.”

“You mentioned that the cause of death was poison”, Sherlock said. “How had it been administered?”

“Very cunningly”, Sammy said, “which makes me even less inclined to suspect someone like Mr. Stewart. I should not speak ill of the dead, but I have no doubt that his late wife wore the trousers in their house! She actually had her own hip-flask of whisky – a very strong brand – and the poison had been added to that.”

“You have the test results?” Sherlock asked. 

“All in the files I have with me”, Sammy said. “What do you hope to find here?”

“I do not yet know”, Sherlock admitted. “Let us see what there is to find.”

+~+~+

Despite its terrible name, the cottage was decidedly ordinary. The one thing that struck me was that it was very clearly demarcated into 'husband' and 'wife' zones. I could picture the poor accused husband having been totally whipped, obeying his wife's every order and.....

Someone who ran the risk of not getting laid that night (and yes, that included doing any laying!) had better stop smirking right now!

“Where is the dog now?” Sherlock asked.

“Mr. Gardiner is caring for him”, Sammy said. “The Stewarts have no relations in the area; Mr. Stewart is an only child, and she has one sister somewhere down in the West Country. I believe that she may have a distant cousin in the capital, so Mr. Gardiner once heard her say, but we found no address for them in her book, so presumably they do not talk.”

Sherlock looked curiously at the large fireside chair, and the table next to it.

“Mr. Stewart smoked 'Old Navy' tobacco”, he said. “That is quite a potent mixture. Is he retired from the service?”

“Hardly!” Sammy smiled. “They are both in their late forties. He works as an insurance agent in the town.”

So he would know to insure his wife's life before dispatching her, I thought. 

“Did the insurance policy work both ways?” Sherlock asked.

My brother looked momentarily confused before he got it.

“Yes, his life was insured for the same amount, and she was the beneficiary”, he said. “But of course, she is the one who is dead.”

Sherlock seemed particularly interested in a bottle of whisky that was in the kitchen, opening it and sniffing it before closing it again. I noted only that it was one of the cheaper ones on sale before he said that he was done here, and that we had best repair to the police station. 

+~+~+

Constable Donald Douglas was clearly wary of Sherlock and I as being 'Sassenachs', but we were allowed to examine the evidence that had come out of the dead lady's shopping-bag. We did so in a small side-room, and to my surprise Sherlock filled three of the small envelopes he kept about his person with samples from it. One was a single dog-biscuit, which even I found odd. Finally however we were done, and we walked back to the station to catch the last train to Fountainhall.

“Do you think that Mr. Stewart can be saved?” Sammy asked hopefully. Sherlock thought for a moment.

“What you are asking is, will the prosecution be able to secure a murder conviction against him?”

“Well, yes.”

“They will not.”

I was as suspicious as my brother looked. I at least knew when Sherlock was using clever words to avoid saying something.

“Did Mr. Stewart kill his wife?” I asked.

“Oh yes!”

We both stared at him in shock.

“Then he is guilty of murder!” Sammy said.

“Indeed, but a jury would never convict”, Sherlock said firmly. “You said that Mr. and Mrs. Stewart moved here from Edinburgh just over a year ago?”

“Yes?”

“Then the case is finished.”

“ _Do_ explain to us lesser mortals”, I said, in a manner that was not at all snarky. He gave me a look that said that we would be discussing that not at all snarky tone later (and I may have coincidentally shivered at how cold this area was at precisely that same moment in time), but began.

“The idyllic life in the country is the aspiration to so many people”, he said, “and Victorian painters have a lot to answer for in portraying it as such. In reality, Mrs. Stewart in particular became bored of her life. She became bored of her husband. And when her husband acquired a Berwickshire Terrier, a dog which, like its Highland cousin, shedded copiously over her nice clean house, she became annoyed.”

“Matters might have rested there – many marriages survive on less – but it was not to be. On one of her increasingly frequent shopping trips to Edinburgh, Mrs. Stewart made the acquaintance of a gentleman friend.”

“How do you know that?” Sammy asked.

“Her shopping-bag.”

My brother stared at him in confusion.

“I saw nothing in it that suggested any such thing”, he said.

“Not so much the contents as the bag itself”, Sherlock explained. “It is of that fine weave which, although it is long-lasting, traps tiny particles in it. Two things of interest concerned me from that bag. First, there were small fragments of tobacco. Regular tobacco, yet in the cottage, we found that Mr. Stewart smoked a very pungent and distinctive brand. No man smokes more than one type of the stuff, so evidently she was seeing someone else.”

“She might have picked that up anywhere”, I said dubiously.

“True”, he admitted, “but the second substance was more damning. Cat hair. It was only in very small amounts, but I am sure that a scientific analysis will show it to be from a Persian cat, which is not a common breed. We were told that Mrs. Stewart went shopping, so why would she visit a private house?”

“The cousin?” I suggested.

“I rather think that 'the cousin' is in truth 'the lover'”, Sherlock said crisply. “Indeed, her actions on returning home only serve to make that much more likely.”

“What actions?” Sammy asked.

“On a misty night, she forwent the comfort of a cab most or all of the way home in favour of a long walk”, Sherlock said. “Without being coarse, human coupling involves the transfer of a large amount of scent. True, she had a long railway journey back, but there was always the danger that her husband might have detected another man's scent on her. A long walk home would rid herself of that problem, and I do not doubt that she planned to take a bath as well.”

I shuddered.

“We shall never find the man involved”, Sammy said.

“You should start by looking for someone who took a cab from the station to the university”, Sherlock said. “The poison used was not the sort that could have been commonly obtained, and I strongly suspect that the man involved in this case works at or is a student there, and is almost certainly a scientist. So to continue. Mrs. Stewart relieves her boredom thus – but it is truly said that your sins will find you out. Her husband discovers her secret.

“How?” I wondered.

“I believe the dog told him.”

Now he was just pulling our legs. Except that his gaze remained unwavering.

“The Berwickshire Terrier is a hardy breed”, Sherlock explained, “but it is susceptible to some things. There is a treatment for cats which involves a mild toxin and, in cats as in humans, any toxin is expelled via the hair. Hotspur must have got into Mrs. Stewart's bag upon her return one day, looking to get at the dog-biscuits, and his body reacted to the toxins in the cat hair. I would hazard that Mr. Stewart took him to the vet, who advised that the animal must have got it from a cat. Mr. Stewart did not let his dog out except for walks on the lead, so he was able to work out as I did that his wife was spending some time at a private house where there was a cat, and all that that implied. I am sure that further investigations would show that he followed her to Edinburgh and to his rival's house one day to make sure, upon which her doom was sealed.”

“The cuckolded man plans his revenge with great care. First, he and his wife take out large life-insurance policies on each other. He knows his target, and that she will feel this offers her an excellent chance to dispose of an unwanted husband and marry her lover, pocketing the insurance money to boot. Except that _she_ will be the one to depart this earth first.”

“One of the clues that was missed from the lady's possessions was the hip-flask. Doubtless the police were congratulating themselves on having spotted the poison in it, and had they pressed matters further, I am sure that they would have found that Mr. Stewart borrowed a book on poisons from the local library. Of course he would have claimed that it had been for his wife.”

“Mr. Stewart knows the British judicial system, in that he can all but destroy any prosecution against him if it emerges that his wife was planning to kill him, and he merely struck first. So he pushes matters, increasing the divide between them. Sure enough, his wife decides that she will rid herself not only of the husband but of his irksome pet as well. If you test the dog-biscuit in this envelope, you will find that it is dosed with enough poison to kill the poor animal.”

I winced. I know that poisoning an animal is, legally, a lesser crime, but to take her anger out on a defenceless dog – it seemed just wrong.

“She knows that her husband takes whisky every day so, on a day that she is with her lover in Edinburgh, she doses his whisky with poison”, Sherlock said. “But whilst she is making preparations for her departure, her husband takes advantage to do the same to her. A slow-acting but deadly poison is added to her own hip-flask. Of course there was no liquid, but I found some dregs in the bottom of it, and should you have those tested, I do not doubt what you will find.”

I could see now what Sherlock had meant about a jury being unwilling to convict a man for the murder of a wife who had been planning to murder him. England or Scotland, no twelve good men and true would ever do such a thing. Yet the man had killed his wife.

“What can we do about it?” Sammy fretted.

“Very little, I am afraid”, Sherlock said sadly. “The insurance company will not of course pay out, although I doubt that Mr. Stewart will care about that. Their role was to precipitate his wife into her own attempt at murder, and for the price of a few premiums, they have served their purpose. No, your best bet would be to meet with the man's defence counsel and settle for a conviction on a lesser crime. I think that a jury _might_ be prepared to convict on that, provided there was no danger of the death penalty.”

Sherlock was to be proven right, as usual. The man's defence counsel agreed for him to plead guilty to attempted murder, and a judge, quite leniently in my opinion, sentenced the man to only three years in gaol. Evidently a higher power disagreed with that leniency, for less than six months into his sentence Mr. Stewart contracted a fever, and died before he could breathe free air again.

+~+~+

Sherlock and I spent a most pleasant week in the capital, and I enjoyed spending time with Sammy and his family, being the indulgent uncle to his children. As did Sherlock; when young Johnson actually called him 'Uncle Sherlock' one time, my man's face lit up, and I honestly thought that he was going to cry.

On a more horizontal note, I had to cope with withering looks from my little brother as what was left of me staggered into his house every day. Look, I had not known that Sherlock had brought The Kilt up with him, and his insisting in wearing it every evening and morning at the hotel meant that I simply had to ravish him, or I would not have been doing my job as a good... mate. My only bad moment was the last evening when we attended an official function with Sammy and, just before we sat down to eat, Sherlock whispered to me that he was wearing nothing underneath The Kilt. Unfortunately Sammy overheard him; he refused to speak to us both for the rest of the evening, and was still scowling as he saw us off at Waverley Station the next day. 

There was a telegram waiting for us when we arrived back at Baker Street. Apparently one of the maids at the hotel where we had been staying had found a certain underwear item – a blue, lacy certain underwear item - under one of our beds and, knowing that I was the brother of a certain local lawyer, the manager had discreetly wrapped it and taken it round to Sammy's house. According to Jessica, her husband was still sobbing on the settee after he had opened the parcel - right in front of the manager! 

Oh, and her nosy neighbour at number 12!

I never did get them back, either!

+~+~+

In our next adventure we stay in the Great Wen, and Methusaleh fears that he may not live as long as he had hoped.

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note: The Lauder branch closed to goods trains in 1964, and five years later the main Edinburgh-Carlisle 'Waverley' line (down which the three travelled in the story) followed it. This left a huge area without any railways at all. In 2015 the line from Edinburgh through Galashiels to Tweedbank reopened, and has been such a success that a further reopening onto Melrose, Hawick and Carlisle looks likely. Fountainhall (population 280) unsurprisingly remains closed, but the station at Stow, some five miles west of Lauder, has reopened, and has proven a surprising success. Lauder itself is growing rapidly; at 1,500 people it is almost back to where it was at the time of this story, but a reopening of the branch line and its poorly-sited terminus is highly unlikely.


End file.
